Sara Sweet Rabidoux-Kelsey - Til Death Do Us Part

 

On a boring Tuesday night in the beginning of the summer, I sit down at the kitchen table with my husband, Jeff, in our brand-new condo and I say, "Listen, I don't know how to tell you this, but I don't want to have sex with you anymore." This is a sad and hard thing to say, but he hears it and mulls it over and he says, "You know, I don't want to have sex with you anymore either." 

 

I am so relieved, but not surprised, because Jeff and I have had this uncanny connection ever since the day we met 10 years ago when he dared me to guess his favorite movie. "You've probably never even heard of it," he said. "Is it Withnail and I? I guessed correctly?” And how this obscure British film I had never seen possibly popped into my head, we may never know. But we take it as a sign we should be together forever and we are engaged six months later. [audience laughter] 

 

But now, at the kitchen table, faced with this uncomfortable truth, we know there are some things we should try, like therapy or marriage counseling. After a little bit of googling, we learn there are certain crazy things that couples try in the bedroom to spice up their sex lives. To be fair, we need more than spice. But we try it all. We go to therapists, we see the marriage counselor and we try some of the crazy stuff from the internet. [audience chuckle] Let me just tell you, none of that crazy stuff works, because none of that crazy stuff works.

 

We find ourselves at this sexual impasse and decide that we should just break up while we're still young and have a chance of meeting other people. But we have just spent all of our money on this condo in Boston. We cannot afford to break up. Plus, we are best friends. So, we do what any financially challenged couple in our situation would do, and we decide to become roommates. No, really, we just move into different rooms, but stay married and keep our health insurance. [audience laughter] Jeff says he'll take the guest room, which leaves me the big room that has the much better closet. 

 

We only tell our very closest friends about the nature of our separation. We do not tell our families. Curiously, at the condo, life is business as usual, paying the bills, laundry, feeding the cat. Jeff and I still even make dinner together, bow tie pasta and salad, and we sit on the couch and eat it while we watch The Sopranos. Everything is exactly the same, except we have more room to hang our clothes. But a few weeks into our arrangement, I broach the subject of dating other people. Like, how exactly would this work now that we're roommates? 

 

I try to imagine myself going on a date or two with someone and then saying, "Oh, I can't wait for you to meet my roommate. He's so cool. He's my husband and we're not divorced yet. But you'll love him." [audience laughter] That's ridiculous. Pretending to be happily married for our families is one thing, but lying to strangers we're trying to hook up with is creepy. [audience laughter] We don't even want to lie, but the truth is kind of weird. We end up just laughing it off. Like, what are the odds that we're going to meet people that would be willing to go along with this anyway? The odds are high. [audience laughter] 

 

I start dating this young Texan that I work with, and Jeff also connects with a coworker of his. Theirs is a more sophisticated courtship, as they work in publishing and I bartend at a place called The Good Life. [audience laughter] Before you know it, we are each having these full-blown relationships, including sex. Things seem great until I notice the neighbors giving us dirty looks. [audience laughter] Like, anytime we go in and out of the condo, they must think something way freakier is going on in here. But we're just consensually breaking our marriage vows and dating other people, so we can keep our health insurance. [audience laughter] 

 

But still, those looks make me feel kind of bad. They definitely make my boyfriend feel bad, because one day he asks me, "Hey, when are you getting divorced?" And I'm like, "Listen, we're doing this ourselves without lawyers or anything. These things take a long time." But honestly, I hadn't even looked into it yet. [chuckles] So, I go to divorce.net, as one does, [audience laughter] and I click the button that says "Print forms." Easy, right? Like, I figure we'll fill out a couple forms, get the ball rolling maybe, but page after page keeps shooting out of the printer and there's like 45 pages. This is like TurboTax, but for divorce. [audience chuckle] 

 

Suddenly, this seems like a huge hassle, so I just take all the papers and stuff them away in a drawer where they stay for months and months and months. 12 months, in fact. All this whole year, my husband is dating his girlfriend, I'm dating my boyfriend. Things are fine. We go out to dinner. We go on trips. Not all together. We actually do our best to avoid each other. We even make a schedule, so that all four of us are not at the condo at the same time. 

 

So, when I run into my husband's girlfriend at the front door one morning, I'm surprised. It's awkward. But mainly, it's because I'm trying to be so nice and welcoming, like an overanxious mother-in-law. We don't need to be best friends, but friendly, like, teammates or people that went to the same college. [audience laughter] Thankfully, she interrupts my babbling and asks me if I would do her a favor, if I would read an essay she'd written. She could really use the feedback, she says. I'm so flattered. She's a writer. I wish I was a writer. Of course, I do. What? I'll say. I think maybe she does want to be friendish after all. 

 

Later that night, I read the essay. It starts off describing how all four of us keep a toothbrush in the same cup in the bathroom at the condo. [audience laughter] And I'm like, “Yeah, that's funny. That's a good place to start.” But then, she talks about how she doesn't want her bristles to touch mine. [audience laughter] She talks about how she's grown jealous of mine and Jeff's phone conversations, which are always about cat food or toilet paper. And then, she mentions the kimono that I had left hanging in a doorway while I was gone for the weekend, and how terrible it made her feel because it served as this reminder of a trip that Jeff and I had taken to Japan in marital bliss, and he had bought me this kimono as a gift. 

 

Okay, this isn't even true. I got this kimono at a thrift store in Houston. [audience laughter] I am shocked. I thought she was cool with the situation. She is not cool with the situation. I don't know what feedback I can give her, really. So, I just note in the margin, "I got the kimono in Texas, [audience laughter] FYI," and I leave it for her on the kitchen table.

 

So, about a month later, it's a Sunday, my day off, and I grab The New York Times, sit down on my porch and open it up to the Style section. And then, I see it. Her essay in the Modern Love column of The New York Times. [audience laughter] She is a pretty good writer. But this is not the same version I had read. This version is sadder. This version is darker. This version talks about how I mark my territory in the condo like an animal. This version talks about how the kimono hangs in effigy, my cruel reminder to her of whose turf this really is. This version talks about how she sometimes hides my earrings and knocks over my stuff as her little way of letting me know she's there. 

 

Now I fucking know that she's there. [audience laughter] I am glad that she's there, because she has taken over the part of my life I wanted nothing more to do with. She's having sex with my husband. And for this, I am thankful. [audience laughter] Because I love him. He is my best friend. And more than anything, I just want him to be happy. I just wanted us all to be happy, and I wonder why she can't see this. 

 

After the publication of the essay, everything falls apart. My boyfriend moves to China. Jeff and his girlfriend also break up and she leaves town. It is once again just me and Jeff, alone in our marriage, in our condo. Really, it should be enough, except it isn't. I know I have to go. If I stay, nothing will ever change. We are too comfortable. We really run the risk of eating bow tie pasta forever on the couch in our platonic marriage. And so, I move out. Even though it is so scary to leave this world that we had made, I know that we need to get divorced, instead of just acting, divorced. I am relieved, but not surprised that Jeff agrees. 

 

Standing in front of the judge, Jeff and I are smiling ear to ear. We're pretty proud that we did actually fill out all these forms ourselves without any lawyers. We have the same giddy excitement we had at the altar. The judge looks at us like we are crazy [audience chuckle] and even double checks, "Are you sure you're in the right place?" I am sure. At long last, after trying everything and failing, I am no longer afraid that leaving Jeff will erase us, that divorce would somehow devour that uncanny connection that brought us together for some special destiny. A destiny I thought was marriage, but really it was to be friends. Lifelong friends till death do us part. Thank you.